This Chatham boatyard is not just enduring – it’s thriving.
by James P. Freeman
Photographs by Rodrigo Ereno
A launching ceremony is a formal custom that celebrates a boat being transferred from land to water for the first time. This naval tradition is both a public celebration and a time to bless the vessel and bring it good fortune. The moment usually represents the zenith of pride for designers, builders, and owners. But not for Jim Donovan.
Donovan, 42, a boatbuilder and owner of First Light Boatworks & Marine Railway, has a different take. For him, that emotional pinnacle occurs much earlier.
“The highest point of beauty for me,” he says upon reflection, “is seeing the raw, completed wooden hull.” In that instant—the transition from conception to reality, when the planks and ribs and wood grains all mesh together in graceful harmony—that is when he knows. “I can tell right then that it will be a good boat and perform well.”
The boatyard has been building, restoring, servicing, and sailing wooden boats for nearly a century now.
First Light resides on Mill Pond in Chatham, a saltwater lagoon that feeds into Stage Harbor before opening up on the southern flank to Nantucket Sound and the constantly shifting shoals of Monomoy Island. Nestled among summer cottages and stately mansions, the yard feels right at home.
A working waterfront since the 1800s, the property is a lesson in endurance. The boat-building sheds once served as dirigible hangers during World War I. The main bay was later disassembled and reassembled from the old Naval Air Station. Sometime during the 1930s, Spaulding Dunbar bought the strand and began to design and build wooden boats himself.
Dunbar graduated from MIT’s naval architecture program in 1926. During World War II, he designed PT boats for Elco, the company known for introducing the first motor to boating in the 1890s. Best remembered for his sailing designs and comfortable cruising yachts, Dunbar also turned out several successful powerboats based on his wartime experience. Many of his boats from the 1930s raced at neighboring Stage Harbor Yacht Club. Some still sail today.
Pease Brothers Boatworks subsequently owned the operations for decades. As the Cape Codder reported in early 2017, when the brothers were ready to step away from the business, “They knew they needed someone who knew the value of tradition and had ‘ocean spirit.’ ” Jim Donovan and then-partner Woody Metzger possessed that spirit and purchased the yard that year.
Beforehand, the duo worked a charter on Mill Pond called First Light Sea Ventures for Pease Brothers. “First Light” is a nod to that legacy.
Today, Donovan’s presence represents a kind of back-to-the-future renaissance.
Born and raised on Cape Cod, he credits his grandfather and great-grandfather with his love of the sea and boats. As a kid, he watched the activity in Chatham Harbor and restored a rowing skiff at age 10. Later, he was sailing Beetle Cats at Chatham Yacht Club.
When he turned 15, his true calling was etched, like finely chiseled cedar, as an apprentice at Arey’s Pond Boat Yard in Orleans. His mentor, Tony Davis, created an environment “to learn the craft,” Donovan fondly recalls. That experience was akin to a master’s degree in boatbuilding.
Donovan eventually built his own boat, the 30-foot Carina, named after the constellation in the southern sky. For five years he sailed and worked around the world: “I got the wanderlust out of my system,” explains the craftsman, who later returned with a vision and a coconut retriever. Dillon now roams the boatyard, keeping watch.
Today, the boatworks is bursting with character, romance, and sustainability—the shop is 100-percent solar powered. Donovan and his team’s best-known designs are the Monomoy, the Tashmoo, and the Pocasset: a line of 26-foot powerboats built specially for the beautiful but often shallow waters around the Cape and Islands.
Words like tradition, technique, and timeless aren’t just something at the boatyard. They are everything. They represent the continuation of building classic wooden boats on Cape Cod.
Cambridge comedian Steven Wright once said: “Someone asked me, if I were stranded on a desert island, what book would I bring?” The punchline: How to Build a Boat.
For Jim Donovan, next-gen builder and restorer, that sentiment sits well.
firstlightboatworks.com @firstlightboatworks
